Kaleidoscope
by WingWoman
Summary: The events of Casino Night through different people's eyes. Starts from the POV of Phyllis. Was originally going to be three chapters, now I'm not sure! Please Read and Review!
1. Phyllis

_I don't own the Office, but I did just get the Dwight bobble head doll! This story will be three chapters, I hope. Review and tell me what you think! _

Pam's smile reaches across her whole face as she pulls the whole pile of chips in towards her.

Even though he just lost to her, Jim's smile is, if possible, even wider.

Why do they fight it? Why do they deny the fact that they are meant to be together?

Roy walks up behind Pam and taps her shoulder softly. She swings around to face him, the smile fading.

That's why.

Pam and Roy are both wonderful people. I must say I don't know Roy all that well, but from the few times that I have spoken to him, it's clear he is a very decent person. And Pam is just amazing. She's sweet and kind and funny. I enjoy her company more than anyone else in the office. Both of them are great, but that doesn't make them right for each other.

I've always thought of life as a puzzle. Maybe that sounds tacky, but that's just the way I see it. Pam and Roy are two puzzle pieces that were never meant to fit with one another, but were crammed together anyway. And once shoved together, it will never be easy to pry them apart.

I have been working at Dunder-Mifflin for almost eleven entire years, longer than Jim and Pam's time at the company added together. I have seen this entire story from the start.

Jim was always funny and personable. He could talk with anyone in the office, make anyone laugh. But for two years he never had any real friends at work, just a large group of acquaintances. That was before she arrived, wide eyed and out of place.

They clicked together right from the start. It took the two of them only a moment to become comfortable around each other, and then it was if they had known each other for years and years. Eventually Jim stopped being the person who could make anyone in the office laugh. He became the person that could make Pam laugh.

If they were puzzle pieces they would fit together perfectly. Why couldn't they just realize that they were supposed to spend the rest of their lives with each other? He certainly had. I saw the way he looked at her while her back was turned. I saw the smiles he shared with her, smiles that never hinted at something more than just friendship. They were standing on opposite sides of a one way mirror. He could see her clearly from where he stood, but all she could see was the life she already was immersed in. And since that was all she knew, she resided in it both happily and resignedly.

I was startled by a hand slipping around my shoulder. It was Bob. I smiled into his eyes, knowing just how lucky I was to have a man like him. How lucky I was that there were no complications to keep us from one another.

"Sweetie, could you get some business cards out of my car? There's a whole stack of them in the glove compartment. I think this fridge give away could be a huge boost for Vance Refrigeration!"

And of course I was too happy to comply.

The cool air in the parking lot felt wonderful against my skin after being in the stuffy warehouse all night. Walking between two cars, the wind carried a snatch of conversation to my ears.

"You have no idea –"

"Don't do that."

Jim and Pam must have slipped out of the warehouse while I was trying to find my coat.

Something about the urgency in their voices compelled me to stop, urged me to listen. Something about the desperate tone of Pam's voice told me to wait, halt, linger. This was important.

" – What your friendship means to me."

"Come on. I don't want to do that. I want to be _more _than that."

What had I gotten in the middle of? This conversation was private. I shouldn't be here, listening.

I couldn't leave.

_Wake up!_ I urged Pam in the silent confines of my mind. _Figure it out! You are meant to be with him!_

"I can't."

She couldn't. Because of the ring on her finger, she chose to stay blind to destiny.

"And I'm really sorry… if you misinterpreted things. It's probably my fault."

"Not your fault."

Not her fault. Not his fault. Not my fault. Not even Roy's fault.

"I'm sorry if misinterpreted, uh… our friendship."

She turned to watch him walk away from her. From this angle I could see her face clearly. She was lost, hurt, and confused. A tear was forming in her eye. Broken, she couldn't move. All she could do was stand there, and stare at the place where he had disappeared around a corner.

Why was the world so incredibly cruel sometimes?


	2. Pam's Mother

_Authors Note: I don't know if the show ever mentioned anything about Pam's family. I hope it didn't, because I made one up for this story. _

"Yeah, I will," she squeaked.

The phone clattered into the base unit.

I waited to hear the dull buzz of the dial tone before hanging up. Scrunching my eyes closed tightly, I tried to imagine exactly what was happening to my youngest somewhere back in Scranton. All I could see was black.

If only a mother could shadow her adult children the same way she could when their heads barely reached her waist. If only I could hold Pam's hand in mine right now, if only I could cover her eyes and ears and shield her from the heartbreaking sound of her life falling to pieces.

The last daughter is different than those that come before her. She is the one who stays close by you when the eldest two go off to school. She is the one that still enjoys your silly songs and clapping games after the other two have outgrown them. She is the one that you spoil unabashedly. She is the one who will cover you in tiny kisses and hug you so tightly she must be pried off. She's your baby.

Pam wasn't like her older sisters, Susan and Claire in any way. While they grew up beautiful, bold, and confidant, Pam was pushed into their shadows. She was so shy, so delicate and emotional. Her siblings were both athletic and popular, always surrounded by crowds of people. They excelled in sports and always knew exactly how to dress.

My youngest daughter, on the other hand, possessed few of those traits. She was smart, pretty, funny, and artistic, but she never saw any of those things. She saw curly, frizzy, wild hair instead of sleek shiny waves. She saw turtlenecks instead of short skirts and trendy tops. She saw framed report cards instead of trophies and ribbons. As she learned to compare herself to her sisters, she crawled farther and farther into the background, her self confidence shriveling up inside of her.

As my two eldest daughters grew older, it became clear that they would be successful romantically as well. They began to bring home tall, beautiful, blond, athletic boys were completely infatuated with them. Their father, who at first was upset by this change, soon became enthusiastic when he realized how much he had in common with these young men. They were the sons that he never had.

I wasn't as thrilled with the boys my daughters found. All my life I had prayed for them to find someone who could care for them properly, someone who could provide for them later in life. These men weren't exactly what I had imagined. What they had in strength and good looks they lacked in intelligence, scraping by with grades just good enough to keep them on the high school football team.

Pam had boyfriends before Roy, but not very many. The few boys that she brought home for us to meet were nice but also geeky. They were not extraordinarily athletic or attractive. Personally, I was thrilled that she chose this sort of boy. It made me proud that she could see past a person's exterior and find inner beauty.

My husband and daughters felt differently.

Although they never said anything that was outright mean to Pam (I wouldn't have allowed such behavior in my home), Susan and Claire made it perfectly clear that they looked down on Pam for liking such boys. They insulted her boyfriends frequently behind Pam's back. Although their father hushed them, it was clear he also agreed with them.

None of Pam's first relationships lasted very long under such pressure.

Then in her junior year, Pam met Roy. He was the polar opposite of the boys she usually liked. Roy played on many of the school's sports teams, and was extremely popular. And he liked her. That was obvious the moment we met him. Something about her quiet personality and her smarts captivated him.

She brought him home to meet us soon after they started dating. I watched her with him, and it was clear that she was proud of her catch. He was a boy that either of her sisters would have dated in a second. Finally, she had outdone them at something, and she was thrilled by that. She enjoyed the attention that her dad lavished upon Roy almost as much as she enjoyed the jealousy of her siblings. But she acted differently around him then she had acted around her other boys.

How can I explain it?

It wasn't that she didn't like him as much. She cared for him just as much or even more than her other relationships. But she seemed… uncomfortable. Like she was trying to be someone that she wasn't. Later she confessed to me that she had no idea why he had even asked her out in the first place. His previous girlfriends had been clones of Susan and Claire, not like her. When she was with him she tried to wear the shoes of that kind of girl, and she looked as if she had been dropped onto the wrong planet.

He wasn't who I had pictured her with. However, she seemed to be happy with him, and I was used to interacting with boys like him because of my elder two. And so I had no objections to their relationship. I was happy for her.

Pretty soon my baby was graduating, and so was Roy. They look so old in the graduation picture that sits on the mantle in our house, right next to her baby picture. I can remember that day like it was yesterday.

Although Pam went to college after high school, Roy didn't choose to follow that path. He got a job at Dunder-Mifflin, working a blue collar job in the warehouse. Outwardly, Pam was fine with his decision, but I could tell that inwardly she was disappointed with his choice. She had pushed him to be more, but it had come to nothing.

Again Pam was graduating, and she was moving from her college dorm into a house with Roy.

On the night of her graduation she called me, practically giddy with excitement. Roy had proposed to her, and she had said yes. My youngest daughter, my smallest, my baby, was engaged.

And I couldn't help but wonder if she would be happy spending the rest of her life with a warehouse worker.

It wasn't who I had pictured her with. Not at all.

Every time that they came over after that for almost six months, I felt guilty for secretly being so unsupportive. It was surprisingly hard to give up dreams that weren't even for yourself in the first place. But I just couldn't banish the picture of the husband I had imagined her with since she was a little girl.

As soon as she started to plan the wedding, Pam realized just how expensive it would be. And after just buying a house, she and Roy were stretched to their financial limit. It became necessary for her to have some sort of an income. To become a graphic designer like she had always wanted to would require more schooling which they didn't have the money for. Roy discovered an opening for a receptionist at his company, and Pam took it at his request. It was supposed to be a temporary job, one that she could keep just long enough to pay for the wedding and school fees before finishing her education and moving on to better things.

Like I had asked her to, Pam called me after her first day. I was expecting to hear lots of stories about Roy at work, but the only person that she talked about was a man named Jim. Apparently he was hilarious, and he sat just across from her desk in the office. When I asked her about Roy at the end of our conversation, all she said was:

"Oh, well, he works in a different part of the building than me, so I don't see him very much."

That's when I started to wonder.

Every time that I talked to her after that she always had another story about Jim. She told me about the jokes that he made, or the pranks that he pulled on some other unfortunate coworker named Dwight. She barely ever mentioned Roy or the wedding any more. It sounded like she had started to like this Jim instead.

Once I made the mistake of confronting her about it. I asked her if she had any feelings for Jim, and reminded her that if she had any doubts about the wedding she shouldn't go through with it. Her reaction was terrible.

"He's my best friend Mom! That's it! What are you doing, telling me to cancel my wedding?"

She didn't call for over a week after that.

The one time that I visited her office I got to meet him. We only had a brief conversation, but when I saw the two of them standing next to each other, my daughter dwarfed by his tall frame, I swear I recognized him.

He was the man that I had pictured Pam marrying when she grew up. The man who made her laugh and who could take care of her until the day she died.

I never said a word to her about that.

But now they were standing together over a hundred and fifty miles away from me. And I would give anything to know what was happening between them right at that moment.


	3. Roy

_Author's Note: Here's a little section that was missing. Bessyboo, thanks so much for the encouragement to keep writing!_

I left because I was exhausted. It had been a long, long day.

I left because tomorrow it will be another long day.

Not because I was tired of shadowing Pam and receiving almost none of her attention. Not because I was fed up with the little jokes she and Halpert shared, jokes that I wasn't and will never be in on.

I was falling asleep on my feet. I wasn't afraid of Jim. It was just easier to get out of there before I saw any more than I wanted to see.

I love Pam. I trust her. I know how incredibly lucky I am to have her. But sometimes I just don't understand her. I don't understand what she sees in Halpert, what makes her so comfortable with him. I don't understand why she laughs with him, why she smiles with him, why she talks with him.

I'm glad that she has someone to be with upstairs in the office. I'm glad she has a friend that keeps her occupied, keeps her amused, keeps her laughing. Keeps her at Dunder-Mifflin, where I can keep an eye on her.

It's not like I don't trust her. But the people around her… that jerk Michael and his little puppy Dwight. Even what's-his-name the temp. They're part of her world. The world upstairs. And so they… they're an annoyance, a discomfort to me at the most. But Halpert…

I trust her. That's why it's so easy to pretend not to see the laughter, the smiles, the jokes, the looks. That's why it's easy to brush of the fact that he liked her years ago.

And it's even easier to see the engagement ring on her finger. Every single time I see it on her finger I am comforted. That ring means something. It means she chose me. It means she doesn't want to leave me. I trust her. I trust her. I trust her. It's easy to trust her. It's always been easy to trust her.

Don't ever say that I am lazy for taking the easy path through life. I just don't see the point of fighting your way through life if you can sail through it and have a lot more fun along the way...

It was easier to leave tonight. It was easier to pretend that I was asleep when she walked through the door a few hours later. I didn't need to hear more about what Halpert had done that night.

I can tell that he thinks I don't get her. But I do. It would be impossible to be with her for almost eleven years, to live with her for almost five, and not be able to read her moods and thoughts. But what use is sensing her thoughts if I don't know what to do with them? If I never know what to say to comfort her? He's better at that then I will ever be.

It was easy to pretend not to hear her when she climbed into bed next to me tonight. She was only there for a few moments. Then she was sliding out again, and I heard the phone lift out of its cradle. And curiosity got the better of me when she backed out of our bedroom and into the hall. When I heard her sink into the couch in the living room I opened the door a crack so that her voice carried to my ears.

"Mom?" I heard her whisper in a quavering voice. Obviously she had been crying.

"He… he kissed me." No, no, no, I was not hearing this. Everything around me was foggy and only her voice was clear, and amplified a hundred times.

"I didn't know what to do… It's all so wrong, Mom! Everything's so screwed up!"

"I'm getting married in less than a month!" As she said this her tone sent shards of glass deep into my heart. She didn't say it happily. She sounded so broken, so terrified. And as stunned as I was, I knew exactly where this was going. What was happening.

"No, I don't want to. Not anymore."

"I know I have to. No, I'll figure something out."

"Thanks Mom. Yeah, I'll call."

"Bye."

I saw her chest rise and fall in a long, slow breath. She rose silently, and it broke me even further to see the new set of her shoulders, the new slant to her chin, the new light in her face.

When she turned around she saw me frozen in the shadow of the dark doorway, and she looked away.

She was already gone, I was already alone.


	4. Mark

_Author's Note: Sorry this one took me so long to post! I've been busy… Enjoy!_

A soft rapping interrupted the reporter's monotonous voice. At first I wasn't entirely sure that I had heard it. I hadn't even heard anyone come up to the door.

It came again, only slightly louder and even more hesitantly.

It was 12:21 am.

My legs protested as I rose from the couch that I had half expected to fall asleep in. "Coming!" I barked, as the knock came again, more insistently.

The woman standing on our porch was a mess. Wisps of curly hair had escaped their barrette and were cemented at odd angles on her face by the tears that flowed freely over her cheeks. Although she sobbed silently, defiant happiness radiated from her eyes and a touch of a smile lingered on her lips.

Those lips parted as she said "Hi, I don't know if you remember-"

"I do," I interrupted. "You're Pam."

Yes, I remembered her. For three and a half years Jim had talked about her almost every day. By the time I met her I knew everything about her except what she looked like. I knew everything about her except that she wore a ring on her fourth finger.

When Jim talked about her his expression changed. It took me months to notice that his mood swings were caused by her, and only her. There was something about the way he said "my friend Pam" that made me suspect that she was anything but his friend. I knew for sure she wasn't as soon as I met her for the first time at the barbeque at our house.

When he was around her he acted blissfully unaware of anything or anyone else in the room. And she wasn't much better, despite the rock on her finger. They were stuck together like glue the entire night, and even when they weren't together his eyes followed her around the house.

The day after the party I watched his face as I mentioned her. When I told him that I thought she was nice, his smile stretched all the way across his face.

But tonight I knew that something had happened. When the door slammed I called out a greeting, but it was never returned. All I saw when I got up to see what was wrong was the door slamming on his tear stained face. He wouldn't come out no matter how long I banged on his door.

For the second time that night I saw his door shut on a teary face. But this time there was a smile on the face that closed the door.

The next morning their tears were nowhere to be seen as she sat at the kitchen table, wrapped up in Jim's arms.


End file.
